National Association of Plant Breeders Newsletter April 2019 2019 Annual Meeting Announcement 2 2019 NAPB Professional Development Workshop 3 Innovature: A conversation about Innovation in Food and Agriculture 4-5 2019 Congressional Visits Day 6-7 Plantae - A Global Plant Science Community 8-9 Graduate Student Spotlight 10 NAPB Photo Contest 11 Call to Action 12 Announcements 13-14 Connect With Us! 15 Inside this issue: Click to follow us!
Transcript
National Association of Plant Breeders Newsletter
April 2019
2019 Annual Meeting Announcement 2
2019 NAPB Professional Development Workshop 3
Innovature: A conversation about Innovation in Food and
The National Association of Plant Breeders Annual Meeting is heading south, as the University of Geor-gia’s Institute for Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics extends a little southern hospitality as our 2019 Annual Meeting host! Georgia has a rich agricultural history, diverse landscape and broad array of crops, all juxtaposed with metropolitan Atlanta and its connection to global commerce. Agriculture, Georgia’s largest industry, is under-pinned by several plant breeding programs at the University of Georgia and it only seems appropriate to host our annual meeting in a state so appreciative of public plant breeding! The 2019 Annual Meeting will be held from August 25th through the 29th at the Callaway Gardens Con-ference Center in Pine Mountain, Georgia. Within an hour of Atlanta, Callaway Gardens offers beautiful hiking and golfing, with easy access to the Little White House of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and to the birthplace and home of Jimmy Carter. Program highlights include an opening plenary featuring UGA geneticist Jeff Bennetzen, sessions on contemporary breeding and genomics research for horticultural and agronomic crops important in the southeast, tours to the Griffin and Tifton campuses of the University of Georgia and the NIFA-AFRI plant breed-ing project meeting.
Meeting registration, program, and travel information can be found at the meeting website. We hope you will make plans to join us in Georgia!
Differentiating Yourself While Making a Difference
Professional Development Workshop August 25th. From 9:00am to 3:00pm Callaway Gardens – Pine Mountain, GA
Sponsored by Bayer Crop Science® and Corteva Agriscience™
Agriculture Division of DowDuPont™
The purpose of this workshop is for graduate students to better understand why differentiation is key to your suc-cess and how you can go about creating your brand and be more effective in your communication. The workshop is free of charge to invited graduate students participating in the NAPB Annual Meeting. Through participating in the workshop, students will:
• Develop a practical understanding of the key steps in creating and developing a differentiated brand for yourself
• Understand when and how to utilize your brand in moments that matter
• Identify effective design techniques to make your presentation meaningful, memorable and motivat-ing for participants
• Spend time putting the learning into action
Differentiating Yourself While Making a Difference is co-sponsored by Corteva Agriscience™ Agriculture Division of DowDuPont™ and Bayer Crop Science®. The two instructors will be Cynthia Sanderson and Dr. Kerrm Yau. Cynthia Sanderson is a Human Resources Business Partner to Bayer North America Plant Breeding Organization She joined the company in 2017 focusing on leadership and employee development and engagement, increasing organizational capability through human capital initiatives, and supporting change management initiatives across the organization. Based in St. Louis, Cindy has over 15 years Human Resources experience across the pharmaceu-tical, life science, and oil and refining industries. As a Protein Biochemist, Kerrm Yau joined Dow AgroSciences in 2003. After 9 years with Biotech Discovery Research, he took a turn in career and joined the Human Resources Function and supported Seeds and Traits R&D responsible for talent development and people leadership skills development. Currently, Kerrm is part of the Plant Breeding Division of Corteva Agriscience and leads their Global Talent Development initiatives to facili-tate change management and team building. He is located in Johnston, IA. The workshop is limited to 40 applicants who will be selected by a selection committee. Lunch and coffee will be provided, and a networking event is planned at lunch. To apply for Differentiating Yourself While Making a Difference, please complete the application and email it to Emilio Oyarzabal [email protected] Application Deadline: June 7 2019.
By Andy LaVigne, President & CEO, American Seed Trade Association
There’s never been a more exciting time for plant breeding – and I truly believe we are just tapping the surface. Even outside of the traditional science and agriculture communities, there is palpable excitement about what the future could hold—for our planet, our health, and our food—thanks to evolving innovations like gene editing. With news of new advances and discoveries coming down the pipeline every day, there’s plenty of reason to be op-timistic. But society will never realize the full benefits of gene editing, or any other breeding methods of the future, if we don’t have a culture that fosters continuing innovation. There’s too much at stake to not get this right. Policy advocacy, stakeholder engagement and consumer communications are all critical components to fostering a culture of continued innovation. That’s why ASTA, in partnership with BIO, recently launched Innovature – a plat-form to engage people in a dialogue about innovation in food and agriculture, with a focus on gene editing. Through the content hub, social properties, media outreach, events and other activities, Innovature aims to engage key influencers in a conversation around shared values to cultivate broad-based partnerships. The goal is to pave the way for evolving plant breeding methods and the potential they hold to address some of society’s most urgent and pressing challenges -- from climate change, to sustainable food production, and hunger.
At the same time, we are advocating at the domestic and international levels, for strong, science-based policies around plant breeding innovation. We realize that gene editing is simply the most recent breakthrough—and is cer-tainly not the last--in a continuum of breeding methods that have been used to develop better crops for centuries. Recognizing plant breeders’ long track record of safety and quality, USDA has rightly reaffirmed its existing posi-tion that if products of gene editing are similar to, or undistinguishable from, products obtained through more tradi-tional plant breeding they should be treated in the same way from a policy perspective. We are also pleased to see the U.S. taking a leadership role at the international level in working with its counterparts to ensure consistent, science-based polices for the treatment of plant breeding innovation around the globe. As an important part of our Innovature efforts, we are seeking to connect with diverse stakeholders in a thoughtful and wide-ranging dialogue around shared values. This involves facilitating a conversation about real-world, problem-solving applications----that matter to consumers--for the benefit of our planet, our health, and our food. As you may know, the first gene-edited food product to hit the U.S. market is a high oleic soybean oil, produced by CalyxtTM Inc. CalynoTM Oil was launched in February of this year and is being sold to the foodservice industry for use in frying, salad dressings and sauce applications. Down the road, consumers could see other direct health bene-fits, like wheat that’s higher in fiber or lower in gluten, or vegetables that are more nutritious and flavorful, just to name a few. With research underway on everything from row crops, to cover crops and vegetables, the possibilities are endless. But we can’t tell these stories without your help! As plant scientists, you are the ones doing the work in the labs and on the ground, spurring the innovation that will allow these advances to come to fruition, for all of society’s benefit. Will you join us? There are several ways you can uniquely support the efforts of Innovature. For one, we want to hear your stories. What research are you working on? What are its potential benefits for our planet, our health or our food? Secondly, we would love to provide you with a platform for sharing those stories with the public. We’re constantly looking for fresh content and stories for our hub at Innovature.com. We’re also seeking experts, like you, to serve as spokes-people and to advocate at events. If you are willing to serve in this capacity, please let us know! Finally, we encour-age you to join the conversation by following @InnovatureNow and engaging with influencers in your networks. On behalf of the entire seed industry, thank you for all that you do. Please reach out to me directly with any ques-tions, feedback or ideas for collaboration. Together, we can seed the way for innovation! Thanks in advance, Andy LaVigne President & CEO American Seed Trade Association [email protected]
The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) collectively conduct the Congressional Visits Day (CVD) through their science pol-icy office. This event provides an opportunity for scientists to meet with their Congressional delegation in Washington D.C. and advocate for food, agricultural, and natural resources research. NAPB sponsored two students to attend along with a representative of the NAPB Execu-tive Committee. The 2019 group consisted of 70 individuals, including undergraduate and graduate students, Certified Crop Advisors, profes-sors, and other assorted professionals and scientists that are members of the Tri-Societies and Agronomic Science Foundation (ASF).
Event Summary
By Don Jones, NAPB Executive Committee
Monday March 4th attendees participated in training to make their CVD informative and effective. Ellen Bergfeld, Tri-Society CEO, wel-comed attendees and got the meeting started with introductions. Seth Turner, Congressional Management Foundation CEO, spoke about how to have an effective congressional visit. Tri-Society staff provided an overview of how the CVD would unfold for attendees. Next, two congressional staffers provided personal insights on how to have an effective visit. The staffers were Matt Bright, 2019 Tri-Society Congressional Science Fellow, and Michael Brooks, Legislative Director for Kansas Congressman Roger Marshall. Both emphasized the need to have a focused, clear message delivered in a manner that congressional staffers would understand. For example, 1) our ask for AFRI is $445M for the 2020 fiscal year, up from $415k in the current year, 2) $5M for a Competitive Grants Equipment Program already authorized in the current farm bill, 3) how AFRI grants answer and/or solve problems that benefit growers and consumers in the state being lobbied, 4) answer any questions. It was straightforward selling of our need. Monday afternoon Scott Angle, USDA Director, spoke about the NIFA mission and updated the group about the staff relocation out of the DC area. Elizabeth Stulberg, Tri-Society Science Policy Manager, followed on how to craft a message. Attendees then practiced mock congressional visits for the remainder of the afternoon, fol-lowed by a reception Monday evening at the Hamilton Restaurant. Tuesday March 5th was another full day. Attendees had already been assigned to a group consisting of 2-4 col-leagues from your home or an adjoining state, so each group then visited the state representatives for those states. The North and South Carolina group met with staffers from a total of 8 offices. These consisted of 4 US Senate offices (2 in each state) and 4 US House offices (3 in North Carolina and 1 in South Carolina). There was usually 1 staffer present, but on occasion 2 staffers welcomed us. As expected, some staffers were familiar with AFRI while others needed more background. The key in each visit was knowing the level of knowledge in each respective staff-er, delivering a succinct message, and answering their questions in an effective manner. Overall the 2019 CVD was fun, informative, and well organized by Tri-Society staff. In the future more NAPB members should participate as it is a worthy cause.
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Congressional Visits Day March 4 - 5, 2019
Image Credit: Samantha Hilborn
Student Experience By Samantha Hilborn, NAPB sponsored student Congressional Visits Day was a very unique and re-warding experience for me. The first day was training for our meetings and the second day we went to Capi-tol Hill. For part of our training, we had to create an ‘ask’ and a message, which was requesting $445 million in funding for the Agriculture and Food Research Initi-ative (AFRI) and $5 million in funding for the Com-petitive Equipment Grants. My message in particular was that as a graduate student, I am funded by USDA and I hope to be funded in the future through USDA and the organizations under it. The second day, we went to five congressional offices, including Sen. Fein-stein, Sen. Harris, Rep. Garamendi, Rep. Costa, and Rep. Panetta. We had about 30 minute meetings with congressional staffers who listened to our ‘ask’ and our message. The staffers were engaging and wanted to learn more about us. Our last meeting of the day was with Rep. Panetta, who is a known advocate for agriculture, as he is the representative for the Salinas Valley. Through the training, I realized how much I don’t know about how the federal funding process works on Capitol Hill. I learned how to be a more engaged constituent and how to have a productive meeting with congressional staffers. I can apply this to my future in many ways because I hope to be interfacing with the public a lot as a USDA Extension Educator. Public speaking and conveying a message to someone not in my field is an important soft skill to have. Working as a team with other students to craft a message is also an important skill. Overall, I found Con-gressional Visits Day to be a great learning experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Student Experience By Neal Tilhou, NAPB sponsored student The Congressional Visit Day was a two-day event with the Tri-Societies that involved a training day and a day scheduled to visit a number of representatives. Our training included prior policy history involving AFRI funding and the generally bipartisan support agricultural research receives. We also received training on effective methods for communicating with representatives. Providing representatives with solid statistics, with a few well-placed anec-dotes, can have a big influence on future support. For the congressional visit day, we formed teams from different regions and visited our representatives to advocate for AFRI funding. Generally, our groups met with staffers representing various senators and representatives, but the training highlighted how staffers can influence representatives priorities. Staffers and representatives were friendly and generally supportive of our request for increased AFRI funding, although all were aware that current political winds are currently not supportive of increased non-military spending. I wanted to participate in the CVD because I was curious about the ability of researchers to influence policy deci-sions. I gained an appreciation of the seemingly simple system in place that allows constituents to interact with rep-resentatives, but also the high level of detail and preparation required to communicate effectively with representa-tives. It was also an excellent way to meet with researchers from around the country and encounter the diverse per-spectives and goals we all bring to our work. I believe that scientists should engage in advocacy because of the im-portance of providing accurate information to representatives.
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From left to right: Ignacio Mendoza (CSU-Fresno), Rep. Jimmy
Panetta, Carolina Vaquerano (UC-Davis), and Samantha Hilborn
(UC-Davis).
Plantae: A Global Plant Science Community Communicate, Collaborate, Co-Create
By Ammani Kyanam, NAPB Communication Committee Developed to address the need for a global community for plant scientists, Plantae was created with the purpose of bringing plant scientists together, to establish a collective presence and give plant scientists a voice in the global
dialogue regarding plant research. Plantae is the only open community that wel-comes everyone in the plant science community regardless of location or career phase, from students to educator and researchers, to authors, editors and profession-als. Plantae began as a crowdsourced initiative that was funded through the American Society for Plant Biologists (ASPB) in collaboration with the Global Plant Council (GPC). They are currently openly and actively seeking partnerships with other organ-izations, groups and societies for building new tools, providing new content, strengthening community and elevating the importance of plant science across the globe.
Plantae has three essential hubs. The Online Community: This hub of Plantae includes three main features. The first feature is the community of plant scientists that have registered with Plantae. This online profile includes all information they chose to share such as their affiliations, research history, areas of interest, publication record and a brief biography. There are means to reach out to them through a chat function. The second feature is the networks that are dedicated to a specific topic of interest within the community. The content in these networks includes a discussion forum and associated media that is curated by a volunteer network leader. The last and decidedly most useful feature is the calendar function, which has a organized list of upcoming events in the global plant science community with quick links to RSVP. The Curated Resource/Learning Hub: The curated research hub also has three main features. The first fea-ture, The Plant Science Research Weekly is a subscription of curated summaries of articles in featured journals like The Plant Cell. The articles are curated by a panel of Plantae editors and Fellows. The second feature, The Tap-Root podcast that showcases a conversation between the hosts, Ivan Baxter and Liz Haswell, and usually the first author of a selected manu-script. This podcast takes an alternative narrative to an usually data-driven publication. It features stories behind the paper, of perseverance, serendipity, humor, integrity and resilience. The intended audience are young plant scientists with the hope to normalize their experiences, and provide examples of navigating the world of science. ASPB won the 2018 Gold EXCEL award for The Taproot from the Association of Me-dia and Publishing.
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ASPB won the 2018 Gold EXCEL award for the Plan-tae Podcast, The Taproot from the Association of Me-dia and Publishing
The final feature is the Plant Science Seminar Series that gives members access to a series of live and on-demand webinars on a variety of research talks, how-to’s, career talks, and thought leadership. The Plant Science Job Board: The job board features all submitted and currently available jobs in plant sciences across the globe. The listing are sorted separately into jobs and internships. Much like Linkedin, you are able to customize your job profile and directly apply to the job posting. The mains support team for Plantae includes Dr. Mary Williams and Mark James. Mary is the Editor of Teaching Tools in Plant Biology at ASPB. Mark is the Web Systems Manager for ASPB. Katie Rogers, PhD Candidate from University of Florida, serves as a Digital communication intern for ASPB and is closely involved in social media content generation for ASPB and Plantae in Twitter, FaceBook and Linkedin. She has been working in this role since 2017. According to her, Plantae’s uniqueness lies in its plant science spe-cialization with all needed resources in one platform. This makes communication across and within disciplines easier, to share and find resources. If you are interested in contributing to Plantae, you can begin by creating a profile and generating a post—whether a blog post, sharing an article, starting a discussion or responding to one. Additionally, if you have a per-sonal website, there is a facility to import the article into Plantae. In conclusion, Plantae is an exponentially growing community for a plant scientists and we encourage you to check it out at Plantae.org
Where do you come from and what is your background? I was born in Quito, Ecuador. I obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in En-gineering and Biotechnology from ESPE University in Ecuador. I received a Master of Science degree in Horticulture with an emphasis in Plant Breeding and Genetics at Oregon State University in August 2015. The main objective of my thesis was to validate molecular markers associated with quantitative trait loci for perpetual flowering and soluble solids content in strawberry. What institution do you attend and who is your advisor? Currently, I’m a third-year PhD student in the strawberry breeding program at the University of Florida, Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC) in Wimauma, Florida. I’m advised by Dr. Vance Whitaker. What is the focus of your research? My project focuses on discovering and characterizing genetic loci for re-sistance to acutatum fruit rot and crown rot in strawberry caused by the fun-gus Colletotrichum acutatum. What is your favorite part of your job? My project involves many stages including field trials, lab experimentation and data analysis in which I need to interact with other students, scientists, and lab
technicians from different backgrounds like plant pathology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, statistic profession-als, etc. My favorite part of my job is collaborative work, networking and learning from everyone. I find it fascinat-ing that in order to release a cultivar requires hard work of different professionals. What would you like to do after graduate school? The ideal situation for me after graduate school would be leading a breeding program and releasing cultivars of spe-cies that are important for human consumption. After graduate school, I’d like to find a job where I can apply the knowledge and experience I’ve obtained as student and where I feel I’m making a positive impact on our planet and our society. What will be our biggest challenge in the future of plant breeding? I consider that there are three main challenges in the future for plant breeding: working with huge amount of phe-notypic and genotypic data, team work to develop an almost-perfect cultivar and climate change. With advanced technologies, plant breeders find themselves with an overwhelming amount of data. I think plant breeders need to be equipped with bioinformatic tools to analyze these massive amounts of data. Yield remains an important trait, but flavor and quality have also become important traits. Interdisciplinary teamwork will be crucial to fulfill these objectives. Climate change was, is, and will be an important challenge for plant breeders. In reality, these challenges are opportunities for breeders and scientists related to plant breeding to find solutions and alternatives to current problems.
Graduate Student Spotlight Natalia Del Rocio Salinas Aponte
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Natalia Salinas is a PhD student in plant breeding at University of Florida, Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC) in Wimauma.
Do you have an exceptional photo that represents your breeding program? NAPB is working on updating our marketing material and we need your help to gather photos that represent the many, diverse, breeding programs that make up NAPB. Winning images will be announced in our July newsletter and will be displayed at the NAPB annual conference.
Rules:
• Entrants may submit a maximum of two images
• Images must be high resolution (300 dpi or greater)
• Images must be emailed to [email protected] and should include 1.)photographer name, 2.) crop (common and scientific name) 3.) brief description
• Submission Deadline: May 31st, 2019
Disclaimer: By submitting an image to this contest, you grant the National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) rights to use the submitted image in NAPB marketing material and in display at the NAPB annual meeting. By submitting an image, you confirm for each photo submitted that 1.) You are the only author of your work and that it is your original work, 2.) You are the sole copyright holder, 3.) You have not licensed any rights in the work that will conflict with usage by NAPB, 4.) You have the permission of any persons in the work, or, if they are under 16, the consent of their parent or guardian to grant usage rights, 5.) The photo does not include trademarks, contract rights, or any other intellectual property rights of any other third person or entity, 6.) You will be responsible for any claim made by any third party in respect of your entry and to full indemnify of NAPB in respect of all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing to any person or entity by reason of your breaching any of the foregoing.
NAPB Photo Contest
January 2019 NAPB Newsletter Page 11
Prizes
1st: $100 2nd: $50 3rd: $25
NAPB Professional Award Nominations The National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) is pleased to announce availability of three professional awards – Lifetime Achievement, Early Career Scientist, and Plant Breeding Impact. Awardees will be recognized at our Annual Meeting on August 25th – 29th at the Callaway Gardens Conference Center in Pine Mountain, Geor-gia. For more information, check out our Annual Meeting and NAPB awards webpages. All NAPB members are eligible to nominate candidates for the three awards. Nomination packages submitted in previous years but not awarded will be considered for two subsequent years, provided that nominees remain eligi-ble for the specific award category (Early Career Award nominees must be within specified dates of PhD). Nomi-nators are encouraged to resubmit nomination packages. Letters of support can be used for up to three years. For inquiries and submissions, please contact Jim McFerson ([email protected], 509-669-3900). Target deadline for all submissions is June 14 2019. Awardees will receive an acknowledgement plaque at the 2019 meeting and be invited to present a talk at the 2020 Annual Meeting.
NAPB Diversity Travel Awards
Please help us spread the word and identify potential applicants for the Diversity Travel Award for NAPB 2019. Meeting funds are available to support participation by US under-represented minority graduate and under-graduate students. The purpose of this program is to attract and retain scientists from diverse backgrounds into the field of plant breeding. Diversity is essential for success in plant breeding, and is a fundamental cornerstone of The National Association of Plant Breeders. More information on diversity travel award application can be found at https://napb2019.uga.edu/files/2019/02/diversity-enhancement-travel-application-fillable.pdf. Right now the deadline is May 1, although we will consider a short extension if necessary to enhance the pool of applicants.
NAPB Borlaug Scholars The Borlaug Scholars application period has closed. While our committee is busy reviewing the current nomina-tions, there are still needs to assure the future success of the program. First, we need another round of experi-enced members to mentor our 2019 class of scholars during and following the annual meetings. Any members de-siring to participate in mentoring emerging plant breeders should send an email to Donn Cummings at [email protected]. You may create a mentor profile by completing the online form. Another critical action is to provide financial support through your personal and/or institutional donations. Doing so will allow this program to grow and eventually become endowed. April is a perfect month to contribute, as it may influence how many scholarships are awarded in the 2019 year. Currently, we are budgeting 10 awards (25% increase) for 2019, but with strong support now, we might increase the number slightly. You can donate conven-iently today by credit card at: Donate to Borlaug Scholars Fund. For institutional partners, please contact Donn Cummings at [email protected]. For more information, see the full “Update and Call to Action” here.
NAPB Call for Plant Breeding Texts The communications committee is preparing an article on current texts used in teaching plant breeding. If you have a favorite, please take a minute to fill out our brief survey. The article will run in our July newsletter.
NAPB Annual Meeting Registration The National Association of Plant Breeders Annual Meeting is heading south, as the University of Georgia’s Insti-tute for Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics extends a little southern hospitality as our 2019 Annual Meeting host! The 2019 Annual Meeting will be held from August 25th through the 29th at the Callaway Gardens Con-ference Center in Pine Mountain, Georgia. Click here for meeting registration, program, and travel information. We hope you will make plans to join us in Georgia! Breeding Crops for Enhanced Food Safety This workshop will take place June 4-6, 2019 at UC Davis. Abstract submission deadline is April 15th. Attendees will collaborate to identify knowledge gaps and research priorities in this emerging field of breeding for food safe-ty. Sessions will cover themes such as regulatory, industry, and extension perspectives on crop safety; genetic di-versity in human pathogen-plant interactions; programs currently breeding for crop safety; and opportunities for breeding strategies for food safety. Breakout sessions will culminate in a whitepaper to guide future research and funding. For questions regarding the program, contact Dr. Maeli Melotto at [email protected]. Click here to register or submit an abstract. International Conference on Industrial Crops The Association for the Advancement of Industrial Crops (AAIC) will hold its 31st Annual Meeting, themed "Advancing the adoption of industrial crops through innovation and technology", that will take place on Septem-ber 8-11, 2019 at the El Conquistador Resort in Tucson, AZ. The conference will cover research and develop-ment activities on breeding, agronomy and utilization of fiber and cellulosic crops, rubber and resin plants, oilseeds, and medicinal and nutraceutical species. This year’s AAIC conference will be jointly held with the Sus-tainable Bioeconomy for Arid Regions (SBAR). Click here for more information.
Webinars
NAPB Early Career Webinars Two webinars remain in the series “From here to there, the twists and turns of a plant breeding career” sponsored by the NAPB Early Career Working Group. Join us on April 23rd from 1-2 CST for Drs. Arron Carter and Kevin Murphy and on April 30th from 1-2 pm CST for Drs. Neha Kothari, Rachel Vonn, and Jeffrey Dunne. Click here for more information about our speakers. Zoom information will be sent out prior to the webinars. SeedWorld Live Webinar: Seed breeding and production reinvented with aerial data acquisition and ana-lytics Forget the phenotyping bottleneck and the hassle of seed production monitoring. Drone hardware and image pro-cessing innovations enable fast and accurate measures of traits, especially if you are conducting multi-plot field ex-periments every year. Field evaluation industrialization and traceability are tremendously streamlined. Aerial intelli-gence brings enhanced knowledge and analysis capabilities of plant response throughout the whole crop cycle. Drone solutions help accurate seeds production monitoring and forecasting which lowers logistics and markets risks. Sponsored by SeedWorld, this webinar will be Thursday, April 25th at 1 pm EST. Click here to register.
UC Davis European Plant Breeding Academy Class VI of the UC Davis European Plant Breeding AcademySM (EPBA) will start in October 2019 and is now open for registration. The UC Davis Plant Breeding AcademySM (PBA) is a professional certificate program of-fered since 2006 with classes in USA, Europe, Africa and Asia. To date, the program has trained more than 330 breeders, 80% of which are from the private seed industry. The 2019 class core curriculum will maintain upgrades from the previous classes and add modules to address the most recent developments in plant breeding theory and practice. Click here for registration and course details.
Contests
NAPB Photo Contest Do you have an exceptional photo that represents your breeding program? NAPB is working on updating our marketing material and we need your help to gather photos that represent the many, diverse, breeding programs that make up NAPB. Entrants may submit a maximum of 2 high res images (300 dpi) to [email protected] by May 31st, 2019. Winning images will be announced in our July newsletter and will be displayed at the NAPB annual conference. See p. 11 of the newsletter for more details. ASTA’s 3rd Annual Student Video Contest Graduate and undergraduate students are invited to participate in the third annual “Better Seed, Better Life” stu-dent video contest sponsored by the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), the National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB), and the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science So-ciety of America (ASA, CSSA & SSSA). The 2019 contest theme is: “Our Planet, Our Health, Our Food – It all starts with the seed.” Video submissions are due by August 31, 2019. Videos will be judged by an expert panel, and cash prizes will be awarded for winners. For more information, including video specifications and submission requirements, visit the contest webpage.
Job Postings Postdoc, Auburn University Auburn University is searching for a postdoc to work on host plant resistance in cotton. The cotton leafroll dwarf virus (CLRDV) is transmitted by aphids and a new species of the virus has been found in Alabama. We are search-ing for someone who has a high level of independence and can contribute foundational knowledge on addressing this problem. You will be working with a multidisciplinary team and providing support to a large screening trial to identify sources of resistance. This is a great opportunity to grow as a scientist and contribute to an emerging problem in the cotton industry. Click here for more information.
To have your announcement included in the next monthly announcement email or quarterly newsletter, please send to Virginia Sykes at [email protected]. Announcements must be received by the 10th of the month to be included.
